A War Photographer Who Stayed With His Subject

In January 2005 Chris Hondros, a Getty Images photographer, was on patrol with a U.S. military unit in Tal Afar, Iraq, when an unthinkable event unfolded before him.

Worried about a possible suicide bomber, U.S. soldiers shot into a civilian vehicle that approached them. The bullets killed two of the occupants: the mother and father of five children who were also in the car but survived.

Photo Journal: Remembering Chris Hondros

Mr. Hondros' harrowing images from the incident – in particular of a small girl screaming, her hands and face smeared with what was likely her parents' blood – defined a new horror of war: the checkpoint shooting.

The next day as he hunched over his laptop at a military outpost on the outskirts of Mosul, Mr. Hondros accurately predicted to reporters working with him this sort of incident was going to happen all over Iraq.

The Tal Afar pictures from Mr. Hondros eventually reached the top of the Pentagon, as emails at the time showed, prodding officials to try to figure out how to prevent the tragedies

War photographers are a special breed, inexorably drawn to the front lines of the world's bloodiest conflicts. In a grim reminder of the risks of their trade, Mr. Hondros Wednesday was hit by fire in the besieged city of Misrata while covering battles between rebels and Libyan government forces. He died after being seriously wounded.

The Oscar-nominated co-director of the 2010 film "Restrepo" was killed Wednesday in Libya amid a battle between rebel and government forces. Christopher Farley has more on Tim Hetherington and his work.

Mr. Hondros believed in the impact that images can have and the importance of sticking with a subject. When the roving pack of war journalists was abandoning Iraq for more fresh conflicts elsewhere, he returned time and again believing that the war story there still deserved to be told regardless of how familiar the issues seemed.

His past work in Liberia produced alarming images of child soldiers strapped with weapons and pumped up on adrenaline. In Afghanistan, he photographed youngsters hauling shell casings as big as their bodies. Other images from Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Haiti, the West Bank and elsewhere earned him domestic and international recognition.

On Wednesday his photos from Misrata, taken hours before he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, showed the typical stuff of war: bullets flying from rebel guns, fighters celebrating victories. But they also include a trademark image: a rebel fighter toting a large weapon that belies the apprehension on his face.

Chris Hondros in Misrata

Photographer Chris Hondros caught this image of rebel fighters moving into a building on Tripoli Street Wednesday before he and others were injured. Chris Hondros/Getty Images

His work from Misrata appeared on the front pages of several major newspapers Wednesday.

In March, shortly after returning from covering the Egyptian Revolution, Mr. Hondros said in an interview for a blog in the Chicago Tribune, how his deep experience in conflict zones had taught him when an assignment became too dangerous.

"The instinct about what is and isn't safe is indeed subtle," he said. "And it's difficult to convey in words sometimes how it affects your work. But after many years of conflict work one does get a honed sense of when a situation is too dangerous. There were many instances when I pulled out of a situation because some subtle cues tipped me off."

He continued, "Or, in the case of a fist-sized rock skimming past my temple during one of the rock fusillades not so subtle—I called it a day after that."

He was referring to the attacks, often with rocks, on photographers during the February protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Mr. Hondros was generous in sharing his experience and insights with younger photographers and journalists. In Haiti, in the wake of the country's devastating earthquake last year, without hesitation he shared his satellite equipment with others having difficulty transmitting text and images.

In the Tribune blog interview, he listed his tips for others covering such events: "Travel light. Eat breakfast. Be prepared for the unexpected. Guard and hide your images once you make them. Remember how quickly a benign situation can turn onerous."

While Mr. Hondros fitted the bill of the rugged war photographer he also was the guy with an infectious giggle who showed up to his own party in an Afghani military uniform. He was deeply proud of his parents' immigrant background and ecstatic about his up-coming marriage this summer.

Rather than being hardened and cynical by what he had witnessed in some of the world's worst places, Mr. Hondros brought a child-like sense of wonder to his work.

"I was in the middle on Tahrir Square," he said in the blog interview. "And there was indeed an incredibly moving outpouring of joy and exultation. Truly amazing to see and I'll never forget it."

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